


Babysitting is the Worst

by PoboboProbably



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Babysitting, Other, ass, sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 17:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13393047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoboboProbably/pseuds/PoboboProbably
Summary: /u/zenith931's Aren Trevelyan is unwillingly forced to babysit my character, Lera Trevelyan's children. It goes about as well as you'd expect.





	Babysitting is the Worst

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zenith931](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zenith931/gifts).



Aren looked up from her book at the sound of a knock at the door. What a bother. She was just getting to the good part, too! She sighed heavily, wondering what the hell could be so important as to interrupt her reading, and answered the door to see Lera, looking rather worn, shepherding her three children into Aren’s house. 

“Excuse me?” Aren asked incredulously.

“Aren! Could you do me a huge favor and look after the kids for a while?” Lera begged, brushing hair out of her baggy eyes. “I have, er… important… business things to take care of. You know how it goes.”

“No.”

“Thank you, Aren, I knew I could count on you!” Lera said, slamming the door shut.

Oh, Maker, no. Aren forced the door open again, but Lera was already thirty paces ahead, moving quickly back to her own home.

“I didn’t agree to this, Lera! Get back here!” she shouted. Lera, without turning around, shrugged her shoulders, pretending not to hear her. “You owe me for this, you bitch!”

“What’s a bitch?” a squeaky voice asked from behind her. Oh, shit. Aren spun on her heel to face the child. The middle one. The only girl.

“A bitch is what your mother is, girl,” she answered. “It’s a very mean person who forces unwilling participants to watch their children for them while they fu…”

“While they fu?” the girl asked. Aren cleared her throat before answering. Probably best not to tell Lera’s daughter that she’d been dropped off so that her parents could play like rabbits.

“While they fundamentally misunderstand common courtesy.”

“What’s courtesy?” she asked. Ugh…

“Courtesy is something your mother very much lacks. It’s what makes someone a decent person.”

“Mum’s not a decent person?” asked the older one. What was his name again?

“No, Aaron, she isn’t.”

“My name is Alan.”

“Whatever. Go play or something. I’m reading.”

Miraculously, the kids managed to entertain themselves for a while and Aren was able to get a few more pages of reading in. The story was just coming to a head when she noticed that the sound of loud and obnoxious children had at some point ceased. Leaning the book down onto her lap, she saw the three of them standing in front of her and raised an eyebrow. The shortest one was picking his nose.

“What?” she asked flatly.

“We’re hungry,” said the tiny one in a petulant tone, flicking the booger off of his finger and somewhere into the carpet behind her. The gall. Hopefully the dog would eat it before anyone could step in it.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Mum usually toasts some bread for us and then we put jam and butter on it,” suggested Aaron.

“What’s your point?”

“Do you have bread?” he asked.

“I think so. It’s in the kitchen.” The kids still refused to move. Had they been paralyzed? “I assume you want me to get it for you?”

The kids collectively only offered a sniffle in response. Maker help her, if one of them got her sick. Not that she’d ever gotten sick, or anything. Disease is for other people.

“Can we have nug pie?” the smallest one asked.

“No.”

“What about nug steak?” 

“No.”

“Nug cakes?”

“No.”

“Nug pie?”

“You already asked that,” she told him. “No, by the way.”

“Are you going to make us anything?” the girl asked.

“Do I have to?”

“Mum doesn’t want us to make our own food. She says we’d be too messy.”

“She’s being ridiculous. You look like a perfectly competent collection of children to me. Go make your own food.”

“Okay!” they all said at once, no doubt excited at the opportunity to do something for themselves.

Aren went back to her book and ignored the children yet again. She soon realized how much she would regret that decision when not two minutes later, there was jam on the floor and bread stuck to the walls. Maker, were they children or were they a troupe of hurricanes?

“What the fuck happened in here?!” she demanded.

“I told you! She says we’re messy!” the oldest said.

“Being messy is one thing, but this is just ridiculous!” Aren supposed it made sense for Lera’s children to be this rampant and destructive. The little bastards.

“Okay, new rule. No one touches anything. Have some bread.”

“No jam?”

“No. Your jam privileges have been revoked, Lenny.”

“His name is Levy,” spoke the girl.

“Whatever! Just eat the bread.”

“Can you play with us after?” Lenny asked.

“What? Why on earth would I want to do that?”

The children each exclaimed something to the effect of “playing is fun,” and Aren figured it might be best to think of some activity to tire the kids out so they’d take naps or something.

“You guys are right. Playing _is_ fun! So how about you finish your bread and then we’ll all go outside and play with Max?”

It was almost too easy. The kids each perked up at the idea of playing with the mabari. They were so keen on it, in fact, that they began stuffing bread down their gullets just to be done eating so they could go out and play.

“Done!” Aaron yelled, then bolted for the door.

“No fair!” the girl cried, immediately running out after him.

The youngest one stood calmly in the kitchen, chewing slowly on what looked like his first piece of bread.

“Aren’t you going to chase after them?” she asked.

“No,” he answered simply.

“Why not?”

“I like bread.”

Aren sighed. “Of course you do. Hurry up, though. I don’t want Aaron and Loretta to be out on their own for too long.”

“It’s Alan and Lydia.”

“I know, _Levy_.”

“So why do you keep calling us by wrong names?”

“I don’t know. It’s fun. Really seems to annoy them, too, which is only fitting since you lot are all annoying me.”

“Can I try it?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Okay. Thank you, Auntie Arianne!”

“Hey, not on me! Do it to them!”

This one seemed clever for his age. Too clever. She’d have to keep an eye on him once he got older.

“Come on. You’ve had enough bread.”

Aren guided the boy out to the front yard, where Lydia and Alan were busy playing with Max’s ears. The mabari didn’t seem to appreciate the effort, looking over at Aren with a look that said “you owe me.”

“Okay, guys, here’s a game I used to play a lot when I was a kid. It’s called Pull the Yarn Off of the Mabari’s Tail.”

“How do you play?” asked Levy.

“Er… you pull the yarn off of the mabari’s tail,” Aren replied, kneeling down and tying a bit of yarn onto Max’s tail. “Each of you step back about twenty feet.”

Once the kids were out of earshot, she leaned in and whispered to the mabari. “Just keep running. Don’t let them catch you, got it?”

Max barked happily and bolted off into the distance, the kids hot on his trail. Finally, some peace. Aren went inside to retrieve her book and then sat on one of the outdoor chairs to continue reading. Every now and then, she looked up to see Max speeding off in a new direction, leading the kids on a grueling chase that would only end when they were too tired to move. With any luck, that moment would arrive sooner rather than later.

Then she heard a bloodcurdling scream and a concerned bark from the dog. Shit.

Aren raced out of her chair to grab her bow from inside and see what was going on. Was it bandits again? Darkspawn? If Lera’s kids got hurt on her watch…

Then she saw him. Lying face down in the dirt, Alan was screaming his head off for some reason, even though no one was under attack. Lydia and Levy stood around him, as did Max.

“Turn around, Alan!” Aren shouted. “Let me look at you!”

She braced herself for what she was about to see, inwardly begrudging the fresh hell she’d get from Lera once she found out. Alan slowly did as instructed, and it turned out that all he sported was a scraped knee.

“For fuck’s sake, kid… Get inside, all of you.”

“Wait,” Levy asked. “What do you get for winning?”

“Hmm? Winning what?”

“Pull the Yarn Off of the Mabari’s Tail!” he shouted, dangling the string in his fingers to demonstrate his victory. “Look! I won!”

“What? How did you manage…?”

“He pulled it off while we were looking at Alan,” Lydia answered. “Isn’t that cheating?”

“How should I know?” Aren snapped back.

“You said you used to play this all the time when you were a kid!” Lydia argued.

“Oh, I did say that, didn’t I? I say a lot of things, kid.”

“So… you lied?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“DOESN’T ANYONE CARE THAT I’M DYING?!” Alan screeched.

“No. You’re about as close to death as Max is.”

“I’m bleeding out!” he insisted.

“I’ve had worse.”

“Like what?” Levy asked her. In response, she simply wiggled her prosthetic in his face. “Oh, yeah. Mum has one of those, too! How’d you get them?”

Aren’s mind flashed back to that day. The eluvians, the anchor, the flesh dripping from her bones. Not a happy memory, and one she would much rather ignore.

“We won them in a contest. Now go inside.”

###### Later...

Aren woke with a start as a loud knock sounded at the door. Unraveling the mess of tiny limbs that had somehow ensnared her overnight, she trudged over to the door, yawning and pushing the hair out of her face.

“Shut up, I’m coming!” she yelled. 

She opened the door to see Lera yet again. She looked remarkably well rested, unlike the day before. Aren’s expression sharpened in an instant, as did her senses.

“Oh. It’s you.”

“Were the kids much trouble?” Lera asked.

“Yes, they were! You get done with your important business things alright?” she bit.

“Oh, did we ever. You should have seen it, Aren.”

“Whatever. Get your kids the fuck out of my house now,” Aren ordered.

“Alright, alright, I’ll go wake them up,” Lera said, stepping closer. Aren blocked her path.

“No, you won’t. I’ll do it. You’ll be too slow. If this ever happens again…”

“Yeah, yeah, I owe you, I’m a bitch, whatever.”

“I hope you don’t mind that I told your kids that.”

“You what?!”

Aren didn’t give her a response. Instead she fetched the kids, shoved them outdoors, and went back to bed, grabbing a bottle of wine on her way there. If Cullen ever asked her for kids, she’d castrate him.


End file.
